From: Bill Cohen <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2011 19:43:04 -0500




Let us not forget the sub-basement, courtesy of Jeffrey Beall.

See below.

  Bill

http://metadata.posterous.com/83235355


On 12/5/11 7:20 PM, LIBLICENSE wrote:
>
> From: Jan Velterop<[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2011 09:05:58 +0000
>
> In defence of mediocre journals, let me delight you with a quote from
> José Ortega y Gasset's 'The Revolt of the Masses': "Experimental
> science has progressed – thanks in great part to the work of men
> astoundingly mediocre, and even less than mediocre."  (The Ortega
> hypothesis)
>
> To which Lewis Wolpert in his book 'The Unnatural Nature of Science'
> (required reading, in my view – ISBN 0-571-16490-0): "Science
> accommodates and even needs the intellectually commonplace."
>
> To which I would add my assumption that none of that mediocre and
> commonplace, but necessary, science is published in 'prestige'
> journals. It follows then that the mediocre and even less than
> mediocre journals in which that material is presumably published, are
> necessary too.
>
> I see science publications as an edifice, with turrets and curlicues
> at the top (articles published in the likes of Nature and Science),
> solid walls (consisting of articles in the better journals), and a
> strong foundation of hard core (consisting of articles in mediocre and
> less than mediocre journals). Without this foundation, the edifice
> would collapse.
>
> Jan Velterop